


A Christmas Spirit

by srmiller



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bellarke, Christmas Movie, Christmas fic, F/M, The 100 - Freeform, but not spooky, ghost story, i'm super into you but am going to fight with you instead of admitting it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-02 08:16:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12722952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/srmiller/pseuds/srmiller
Summary: Bellamy Blake died in 1920 and he's been coming back every year since, essentially alive from December 13th to Christmas Eve.He's enjoyed his solitude for those 12 days but there's a new addition this year with Clarke Griffin. She's intent on helping him move on so she can sell the inn, and get a promotion at the law firm where she works but the last thing either of them counted on was their hearts getting involved.And then there's the matter of Bellamy's murder, can they solve a hundred year crime when the only eye witness can't remember what happened and everyone involved is dead?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the Christmas Movie "The Spirit of Christmas" which I love and adore and recommend everyone go watch.
> 
> This fic is finished, new chapters will be posted once a week and then the last chapter will be up on Christmas Eve

_ 1920 _

Bellamy Blake walked through the brisk cold of a Christmas Eve night towards the inn he called home.

The motor car he commandeered had gotten stuck down the street which was why he had to make these last few yards by himself. His wool jacket was hardly enough to keep him warm but the bright moonlight shining down from a clear sky gave him a clear view of the front porch beyond the woods.

Just a few more steps, he thought, and he’d ask Gina for her forgiveness. He’d promise to never go back to the rum running, and he’d do whatever he could to keep the inn alive for her. For their future.

And as if he’d called her from his thoughts she stepped out onto the porch, wrapped in pretty furs, looking out into the darkness.

Bellamy had promised to be back by Christmas Day and when he checked his pocket watch he still had five minutes left of Christmas Eve.

He inhaled the sharp air, prepared to call out to her, but from one moment to the next everything went black.

When he woke up he was standing on the porch a year later, and he was a ghost.

_ Present Day _

Clarke was trying to pay attention her date, Niylah was great, but Clarke couldn’t help but make a list of the things she still needed to do at the office before tomorrow. If she could keep the date to under two hours she would have enough time to-

“Clarke?”

Blinking, she pulled herself back to the moment. The restaurant was beautiful, decorated for the upcoming holiday, and Niylah was stunning if a little exasperated.

“Did you hear what I was saying?”

“Sorry, I was trying to decide what I wanted to eat.” Clarke lied as Niylah reached across the table.

“Clarke, we don’t have to do this.”

Clarke blinked, finally noticing the seriousness on her girlfriend’s face. “Don’t have to do what?”

“We don’t have to keep trying to make this work.”

“We don’t?”

“I’m fully aware I’m not a priority for you-

“Niylah-“

She held up her hand. “I’m not, and that’s fine. If you wanted to make this work, you’d put in the effort and the fact we had to reschedule this date four times indicates pretty clearly where I am on your list.”

“And you’re tired of dating who doesn’t know how to love?” Clarke finished, her voice taking on an over the top casualness.

“I didn’t say that.”

“No, my ex Fin did. This was before I found out he was dating someone else at the same time as me, so you know, irony. My last girlfriend called me unyielding, which mostly just meant I didn’t do whatever she wanted but I wasn’t going to pretend I agreed with her for the sake of agreeing with her.”

Clarke sighed and leaned back in her chair. “I’m sorry, I’m not going to pretend I feel something when I don’t.”

Niylah leaned forward, but it wasn’t as intimate as it was friendly. “Which is why I’m not asking you to. It is, however, why I’m breaking up with you.”

“That’s really nice of you,” and Clarke was pretty sure she meant it. “I do like you, I wasn’t lying about that, I just…it’s just not enough.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing. Sometimes you just don’t feel something, and that’s okay.”

Clarke sat up straighter and leaned forward. She wanted to be friends with Niylah. “But I want to, and every time I’ve tried, it’s failed.”

“You act like they should have all succeeded. It only needs to happen once, this just wasn’t that time.”

“You’re way too good for me, you know that?”

“I’m aware.”

Clarke laughed. “Would it be totally rude if I ordered my food to go?”

“I just broke up with you, it would be weird if you didn’t.”

With another laughed Clarke picked up her wine glass, figuring she might as well finish it. “Good point.”

They hugged goodbye when Clarke’s food arrived and they promised to keep touch and Clarke thought they might actually manage to do it. Maybe she didn’t need romance, maybe she just needed more friends.

She hadn’t been inside the law office for more than a few moments when she heard, “Clarke, is that you?”

At the sound of Marcus’ voice Clarke bee lined towards his office, jacket still on, purse and to go bag still hanging from her hands.

“Hi.”

“I thought you were out for the night?”

“Nope, just went out to have dinner with a friend but decided I’d just bring it back here and get some work done.”

“Wonderful. Then you can deal with this,” he started shuffling through a pile of folders on his desk.

“Why don’t I set my stuff down, and I’ll come back and get it?” Clarke suggested and Marcus waved her away.

Her office was pretty bare, all things considered, and more than one person would probably think it was odd that Marcus had more pictures of her mother than she did, but Clarke didn’t like people remembering her mother was dating one of the partners of the law firm where she worked.

She wanted to people know, without any doubt, she got here on her own.

“I found it.”

Clarke hung up her jacket on the coat tree in the corner and walked back towards Marcus with her hand out. “What is it?”

“Henrietta Marsh died.”

“Who is Henrietta Marsh?”

“The potential ruining of your mother and my vacation plans.”

“Which is why you’re handing it to me,” Clarke guessed, leaning back against her desk.

“I know your mother wants you to go with us to the Bahamas, and I also know you don’t want to. If you want, here’s your out.”

“You’re plotting behind my mother’s back?” Clarke asked with a raised eyebrow. “That’s dangerous.”

“I know you want to get promoted, Clarke, and picking up an extra case during the holidays is a good way to show the other partners how dedicated you are to the firm.”

Clarke started flipping through file, skimming to see what she could glean. “It’s just executing a will?”

“Mostly.”

“Mostly?” Clarke asked, knowing her boss (and potential future step father) well enough to know he was hiding a wealth of knowledge behind that word. “How many assets?”

“Just the one. It’s called Hollygrove Inn.”

Clarke found the right page. “How quickly does everything need to be taken care?”

“Soon enough the trust doesn’t have to pay taxes.”

“Marcus! That’s the end of year.”

“I know.”

“The end of the year is three weeks away.”

“I know that too.”

Clarke made a sound in the back of her throat. “It’s a good thing my girlfriend broke up with me tonight.”

“You were dating someone?”

Clarke waved a hand in the air to brush away his concern. “It doesn’t matter.”

He looked as if he wanted to argue but they weren’t quite close enough he could press further about her love life. “Look. I can’t make any promises, but Anya is leaving and joining another firm in Chicago which means there’s going to be a Senior Associate position opening up.”

“Marcus.”

He held up a hand to stop her. “No promises, but I’ll go to bat for you over Roan.”

“That’s really not saying much,” Clarke muttered but there was a sharp thrill in her gut. This wouldn’t just be a promotion, it would be a get. It would put her on a clear path to partnership. This was what she’d been working towards since high school. “But thank you.”

“It’s mostly selfish, if you get promoted that’s even more off my shoulders and I’ll worry less knowing it’s you taking care of things rather than Roan.”

She smiled at the compliment. “I’ll get on it tonight, starting with looking through the books, and hire a local appraiser.”

“Actually, that seems to be a problem. Look at the newspaper clipping there in the middle.”

Clarke flipped through the pages and found the one he was talking about and only needed to read the first few sentences before rolling her eyes. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“I kid you not,” Marcus assured her. “Almost half the population believes in the existence of ghosts and currently, so do 100% of our appraisers. I hired two different companies and both were unsuccessful.”

“So hire someone who isn’t crazy.”

“I’m hoping I did. Mr. Mbege will be at the inn on the 12 th and so will you.”

“You want me to hold his hand.”

“And handcuff him to the stairs if necessary. I’m sure you won’t have any problems,” he added with a hand on her shoulder. “You never do.”

Clarke showed up at the Hollygrove Inn just a few minutes before she was supposed to meet up with John Mbege, local appraiser, and while she’d always considered herself to be a city girl she had to admit the drive had been straight out of a storybook.

Postcard streets and old style lamps with wreaths hanging from them added a festive air to the snow covered sidewalks and evergreens. 

Clarke couldn’t picture living here long term, but she thought she might enjoy the couple days she’d be here getting the inn ready to sell.

Then she pulled into the Hollygrove driveway to see a man running from the hotel, ignoring Clarke’s horn, and practically diving into his car before locking the door.

Clarke parked the car, turned the engine off and tried to catch the man as he drove off but the term ‘bat out of hell’ popped into Clarke’s head as he sped away.

“What the –“ unable to believe what she’d just seen Clarke walked around the house towards the front door.

She’d seen pictures of the place and it lived up to the charm. The wide porch and white paint made it look as if it had grown out of the snow and had always been there. Nothing, to her eyes, was worth running away from.

But the front door was open.

Not very responsible, Clarke thought darkly, and briefly thought about calling his boss to complain as she stepped into the house. There were no dark shadows or movement out of the corner of her eye and couldn’t figure out what it was that had sent the man running.

The place was warm, and welcoming. Dark wood floors and a banister following the stairs up to the second floor. It was decorated for Christmas and Clarke thought the only thing which was missing were carolers and hot chocolate.

Wandering through the rooms she found a small parlor, the fire burning low and above it on the mantel a handful of old black and white photos in vintage frames. She paused to look at them, a serious looking woman in a spring dress, a toddler smiling at the camera, and a dark haired man with freckles easy enough to see despite the low quality of the picture.

He had a smirk, his hands tucked into a winter coat.

“Can I help you?”

Clarke started at the voice coming from behind her. She turned, clutching the picture to her chest as if it might still her wildly beating heart. “Sorry, the door was open.”

The man had dark skin, his hair a close crop while his beard looked like it had a couple weeks worth of growth. Not unfriendly, and thankfully, not a ghost.

“It shouldn’t have been,” the man glared in the direction of the door. “I’m closing up for the holidays.”

“That seems like a strange business move,” Clarke pointed out. “Wouldn’t Christmas be a busy time for an inn called Hollygrove?”

“It’s tradition.” He reached out and took the photo from her, glancing down at it before putting it back on the mantle. “I’m Nathan Miller. Nate. I’m the manager of the Hollygrove.”

Clarke realized she’d neglected to introduce herself and stuck out her hand. “Clarke Griffin. I’m here for the property appraisal.”

“I figured. Mbege got here early and left early.”

She wished she could figure out the meaning behind his half smile but Clarke was more interested in other things. “Not exactly the most professional thing I’ve ever seen someone do. What happened?”

Nate shrugged. “Probably the ghost.”

Clarke stared at him, not quite believing what he’d said. “Excuse me?”

“Bellamy’s never harmed anyone, but sometimes he likes to make himself known.”

“Bellamy?” Clarke repeated. “You’re on a first name basis with the ghost?”

“I’ve worked here since I was a kid.” Nate shrugged as if it was the most normal thing in the world. “His fiancée inherited the inn from her father and it’s important to him. I’m sorry you came out here for nothing.”

Clarke laughed. The situation was ridiculous enough it called for it. “I’m not going anywhere. Mbege can’t be the only appraiser left in the state. I mean, there has to be someone who isn’t afraid of a silly ghost story.”

The sound which came from the second floor sounded so much like a stomp Clarke was almost inclined to believe it was a real person. Almost. “Sorry, Bellamy,” she called out and hoped it at least sounded sincere to the inn’s manager.

“Okay. But where are you going to stay.” Very deliberately, Clarke looked around the inn in which she was currently standing. “Uh. Yeah, that’s not going to work. We’re closed till the day after Christmas. The staff is gone and I’m on my way out.”

“You don’t have to worry about me, I’ve got my own set of keys and I can manage to make a sandwich without burning the place down.”

“I still wouldn’t recommend it,” and gave a pointed look upstairs where the noise had come from.

“Because of the ghost? I don’t scare easily.”

He didn’t look convinced. “I’m leaving, you’ll be on your own.”

“I’ve been taking care of myself for most of my life,” Clarke told him impatiently. “It’ll just be for one night and I’ll lock up when I leave. But if it would make  _ you _ feel better, you’re welcome to stay as well.”

“Yeah, that’s not happening. I’m leaving on the 13 th , just like I always do.”

“Why the 13 th ?”

He looked back at her as he headed towards the door. “Tradition.”

Clarke was on the phone with Marcus as she locked up the inn for the night. “The appraiser was a bust.”

“What happened?”

“Apparently the resident ghost asserted herself.”

“What does that even mean?”

Clarke laughed, “I have no idea.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’ll just head back to the city tomorrow, get one our guys to come down. Someone who isn’t caught up in the story of the place.”

“So you’re staying in the haunted inn for the night? If you get killed by a ghost because I sent you to the countryside, your mother will never forgive me.”

She snorted. “I’ll try and not be murdered by a dead person.”

“I appreciate it. Stay safe, Clarke.”

“Have a safe trip and I’ll see you guys when you get back.”

Clarke hung up and stopped in the hallway to look at a newspaper clipping framed with the same photograph from the parlor.

BELLAMY BLAKE MISSING: PRESUMED DEAD

Bellamy appeared in the woods which surrounded the inn wearing his wool jacket, well worn boots, and suffering from a headache.

He got up out the snow, the wet and cold familiar to him now and he sighed heavily before walking towards the inn.

If nothing else, it would be nice to eat something hot and see what books Miller had stocked for him to read over the course of the next 12 days.

He always appeared in the back so he didn’t notice the car in the parking lot out front and didn’t think to wonder who else might be in the inn when he walked inside. The beeping of the alarm had been added a few years back, but Miller had put a note on the door so he’d know what to do with it.

He pushed in the code and heard the alarm beep off.

Deciding he wanted food first he took off his jacket and started looking through the cupboard. Normally he enjoyed cooking from scratch but right now he wasn’t in the mood. He’d use one of the canned soups Miller kept, find a book, and then settle next to a fire.

All in all, it wasn’t a bad way to spend the night when you’d been dead for decades.

The creak on the stairs startled Bellamy. Miller normally didn’t hang around, had only ever done so when there was important information to pass on he thought Bellamy would need to know and might have questions about.

Heading towards the front of the house he passed through the main parlor, saw the door was shut but a glow was moving down the hallway.

It was a woman holding a cell phone in one hand and a butter knife in the other.

“You’re trespassing.”

The woman jumped back and hit the bookshelf hard enough the vase on the top shelf fell straight on her head.

She hit the floor with a hard thud.


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning Clarke woke up on the couch with a groan.

Her head was killing her and she couldn’t remember actually going to sleep on the couch and when she looked down at what was covering her she was confused. She definitely had never seen this quilt before.

“What the hell,” Clarke muttered to herself, sitting up and pushing the quilt off.

And then she heard the very distinct sound of someone playing ’12 Days of Christmas’ on a piano, she repeated the question. “What the hell?”

She stood up and nearly lost her balance, reaching out to grab the arm of the couch to keep her steady.

The pounding in her head was vicious and all she wanted right now was a pain killer and some quiet.

Had Nate come back? Was he the person who had been the creaking sounds last night and made sure she was on the couch and warm while she slept?

Clarke made her way through the house and when she finally found the piano it wasn’t Miller sitting at it.

The music stopped.

“How’s your head?”

He had short hair which was curling just a little at the edges, broad shoulders, and when he shifted to look over his shoulder at her there was a second when she was momentarily taken aback by how attractive he was.

“Sore,” she replied. Fucking freckles.

“Understandable.” He shifted on the piano bench so he could turn and look at her. His clothing was almost hipster with the suspenders and the old-style pants and vest. It was attractive in its own way.

“But you look no worse for the wear, which means you can leave.”

Okay, Clarke decided as she stepped forward, fuck whoever this guy is. “You’re the trespasser here, not me.”

He stood up and he wasn’t as tall as Clarke expected him to be, but damn if he didn’t look familiar. “A man cannot trespass on his own property.”

“This inn belongs to the Marsh Trust which means you should leave before I call the sheriff,” and to emphasize her point she unlocked her phone which meant she didn’t see him move towards her and didn’t realize what he was doing until he grabbed her by the waist and hoisted her over his shoulder.

“What!” She wiggled but he must have been hiding some decent muscles hiding under the crisp white shirt because she wasn’t getting free.

He walked her towards the front porch and once they were outside he set her down her feet, not exactly gently but at least he didn’t drop her on her ass.

The downside was it took just enough time to orient herself as it did for him to get inside and lock the door.

“Asshole!” Clarke yelled as she crossed her arms to try and keep warm. She’d walk around the around the house and see if any of the windows were open. In the meantime, she’d call the sheriff’s office and have them come over and kick the trespasser out.

Who the hell was he anyway? He hadn’t been dressed like a transient, and he spoke in a kind of stilted, almost formal tone. Maybe there was a psychiatric hospital near by.

She watched as he came back to the door and wondered if he was actually going to let her back inside but instead he opened the door just enough to throw the quilt at her and then locked it again.

“Asshole,” Clarke muttered again as she wrapped the quilt around her and thanked the gods she’d put on her slippers before she’d gone chasing after the trespasser last night. She dialed 911 and let the dispatcher know what was going on and then waited, on the porch, in the fucking cold, in a brightly colored quilt.

This was the easily the least professional she had even been in her entire life.

When the county patrol car drove up it was a black man in a dark blue uniform and out of habit she read the name tag on his chest

“Miller?” she asked out loud, surprised. “You’re Nate’s dad?”

“I am,” he held out his hand she stuck her arm out from under the quilt. “Nate said you had planned to stay overnight.”

“Yeah,” and Clarke tried not to snap at the man with the gun. “But I was warned of ghosts, not guys who dump me outside in freezing cold temperatures.”

“He was here when you got up?” he asked as he sifted through a keyring which she had been told by dispatch he would have. Apparently the sheriff, whose son also ran the inn, kept keys of nearly every business in town.

“Yeah,” Clarke answered as she followed him inside. “But he might have gotten in last because I thought I saw someone before I got knocked out.”

He looked immediately worried as he looked the around parlor. “Someone hit you?”

“Oh, no. A vase fell and hit me on the head.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, but I’d be better once this guy is gone.”

He nodded, his hand resting on the butt of his gun. “Why don’t you stay here by the door and I’ll take a look around?”

While the sheriff looked around Clarke discarded the quilt and nearly paced a hole in the hardwood and when he finally came back it was with a shrug.

“No one?”

“Most likely he was a drifter who just wanted to get out of the cold but high tailed it out of here when he saw me pull up.”

“He was dressed pretty well for a drifter.”

“You’d be surprised. I’ll keep an eye out in the area but you want to make sure you set the alarm.”

“I did,” Clarke insisted. She’d set it after she hung up with Marcus…hadn’t she?

Frustrated she couldn’t remember she thanked the sheriff for coming by, promised she’d call if she had any more problems, and then felt incredibly alone once he left.

She set the alarm, and then to prove to herself she’d set it she took a picture of it before heading upstairs to get ready for the day.

Clarke locked the door to her room then went into the bathroom and change for the day. She started going through a mental checklist of things she still needed to do in the short amount of time Marcus had given her.

Distracted by her to do list she didn’t realize right away there was someone in her bedroom until he spoke.

“I know where the master key is,” he told her dryly as he leaned against the bedpost. “I don’t wish to harm you. I just want solitude which requires your departure.”

Clarke stared the man, still attractive, still potentially dangerous, and now in her bedroom.

She grabbed her cellphone off the side table and slammed the bathroom shut and for the second time that day, called 911.

The sheriff came, looked around, and warned Clarke against not setting her alarm but when she showed him the picture she’d taken of the set alarm it seemed to throw him. He offered to hang around until she left but she told him no, if he was sure there was no one in the house.

She’d be leaving soon anyway.

When she shut the door behind the sheriff she rested her head against the door. She wasn’t crazy.

“I know the alarm code too.”

This time she didn’t jump, it was almost as if she’d been waiting for him to pop out of the shadows. Clarke turned around, crossed her arms and leaned back against the door. “Are you going to keep disappearing and reappearing like this?”

“I don’t know, are you going to keep calling the sheriff? He seems to think this all in your head.”

For the first time, Clarke started to doubt herself. “I don’t know. Is it?”

“You tell me, it’s your head after all.”

She studied him and she thought about what had been going on over the course of the past day, of weird sounds and the vase and the constant reappearance of the well dressed man.

“I think you’re real.”

“But what is real?” He smirked, actually smirked at her, and walked away.

Frustrated, she practically growled and followed him around the corner except for the fact the fucker wasn’t there. “Stop doing that!”

She could have sworn she heard him chuckle in the parlor so she headed that direction but stopped when she got to the framed article she’d seen the night before.

“Impossible,” she whispered to herself as she stepped forward.

“Unfortunately it isn’t.”

This time it wasn’t the ghost, but the very real, Nate Miller. “You knew this was going to happen, didn’t you?”

He sighed and started pulling off his jacket. “I thought it might, and honestly I thought you’d just leave.”

“And what would I tell my boss?” Clarke asked as she followed him into the formal dining room. “Strange things are afoot at the Hollygrove! I have a promotion riding on this.”

“Hollygrove should not be sold.”

“Will you stop doing that!” Clarke yelled at Bellamy-and she was now convinced the man in the vest was the long dead Bellamy Blake. “Jesus. Can you two stop doing the ‘Scare the crap out of Clarke’ bit you have going on? I have a potential head injury and can someone explain to me how he is a ghost.”

Nate looked over her shoulder at Bellamy.

“He doesn’t look like a ghost,” Clarke explained as if it needed to be clarified. She reached back behind her and wrapped her arms around his forearm which was bared by the rolled up sleeves. “You can’t touch ghosts.”

When her skin made contact with him she would have sworn under oath she felt a jolt under skin. Looking at him, their eyes met, and she felt as if something inside her had collided against something hard. She couldn’t quite catch her breath.

“So we’re telling her then?” Nate asked and Clarke dropped Bellamy’s arm as if it was hot.

“Seems prudent.”

“At this point I wouldn’t believe anything either of you said.”

“And you’re an expert in the supernatural?”

“I’ve seen movies,” Clarke bit out, knowing it was hardly the best comeback.

“Ah, yes. The cinema. Trust me, Miss Griffin, there’s more to the afterlife than can be dreamt of in flickering lights and organ music.”

Clarke stared at him for a half second before turning back to Nate. “Doe he always talk like a pompous ass?”

“At the moment, Bellamy is not a ghost,” Nate replied, clearly not answering her question.

“Obviously. What exactly happened, because there’s a newspaper in the hallway saying you’re dead. Why are you here?”

“A curse.”

Clarke couldn’t help the laugh which bubbled out. “I can’t believe you actually just said that with a straight face.”

“How else would you explain this?” he challenged and with a shrug Clarke had to admit she didn’t have another answer.

“Look. I’m having a hard time believing you’re a ghost, much less a cursed one.”

“You need proof?” Bellamy asked with less bite than she’d expected.

“Honestly? Yeah, I would feel better if I had something tangible.”

Bellamy looked at Nate who nodded. “Come with me,” Bellamy offered, extending his hand out to her.

Clarke stared at his hand, more than a little hesitant to touch him again after the last time. If he was a ghost it would explain why simple skin-to-skin contact would have caused such a visceral reaction.

“You’re not afraid of me are?”

The gauntlet thrown at her feet was more than enough, she took his hand and allowed him to lead her to the back of the house and out towards the gardens she had yet to explore.

They passed through a stone archway towards white pillars which she’d seen in more than one photograph on the inn’s website advertising weddings. She could picture it as it was in the spring, with blooming colors and twisting vines, but now it was all white snow and bare trees.

He stopped under the white beam across the top of pillars and stared at her, like he wasn’t quite sure of what he was about to do.

“What?”

Bellamy shifted so his back was to the woods surrounding the property but held onto Clarke’s hand as he took one step back and then another.

And disappeared.

Clarke was actually, literally speechless as she stared at the place he had been. He’d been real, her hand was still warm from being held in his, but he was gone.

She stepped forward under the beam and looked around, but there were no footsteps in the snow, nothing but woods and white.

Turning on her heels she ran back towards the house, her feet sliding on the hardwood as she skidded in the front entry and there he was, sitting half way up on the steps.

“Now do you believe me?”

Clarke grinned. “Yeah, and if you think I’m leaving now, you really are out of your mind.”


	3. Chapter 3

“You sure do eat a lot for a ghost,” Clarke pointed out as Bellamy ate. Nate had agreed to let Bellamy explain everything and went off to do some general checking on the property to make sure no pipes were going to burst from the cold.

“It’s more about the sensation,” he explained. “My senses are heightened when I come back.”

“But a grilled cheese?” Clarke asked, dubious. “I would have gone for something like a chicken vendaloo. Did you have that when you were alive?”

“Tact really isn’t your strong suit.”

“You’ve been dead for almost a hundred years, I figured you’d be used to it by now. Are you always this cranky when you come back?”

Bellamy sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I don’t know,” he finally admitted. “This is the longest interaction I’ve had since dying.”

“Really? I thought you and Nate were buddies.”

“Miller and I only have brief interactions, usually when there’s something important I need to know about.”

“So you really don’t know what happened? I mean, I’m no expert on curses but this seems weird. You’re a ghost except for two weeks out of the year? Why?” She leaned forward and grinned. “Did you piss off a witch?”

“There are no such things as witches.”

“Oh, sure, you being a ghost is totally okay but we’re drawing the line at witches.”

“The only things I know for sure are I died, and for 12 days each year I am allowed to come back like this but I’m restricted by the property lines.”

Clarke huffed out a breath. “There too many rules for this to be random. I mean, have you tried to figure this out? Because if it was me, I’d spend every waking moment trying to understand what was happening to me.”

His gaze sharpened as he looked at her. “No.”

“You don’t even know what I was thinking.”

“Except for the fact that I do, you want to fix this. Fix me.”

“Just listen-“

“No,” he interrupted, and as if thinking it would end the conversation, he got up and left the room.

But Clarke followed.

“What’s the harm?” she asked as she fell into step beside him.

“I have a finite amount of time and I’m not willing to waste it on wild hunches.”

Clarke grabbed his arm, felt the jolt again but this time she didn’t let go. He looked down at her hand curiously before meeting her eyes. “What?”

“Have you ever tried to figure this out?”

“More time than you can possibly imagine.”

“With help?” she insisted.

Clarke felt a sharp pang at the brief look of sadness on his face which he quickly hid. “With my sister. She lived here for a time after my death.”

“I’m sorry, but that was a long time ago. If we figure out how you died, or why, we might be able to stop all of this.”

“And then what?”

“And then you,” Clarke stumbled over her words, “Cross over, go into the light, whatever.”

“You think,” he said and passed by her to head up the stairs.

Clarke followed him, and by the time she caught up with him he was sitting at the little table in a nook on the second floor. He ignored her and pulled a set of glasses out of his vest pocket and picked up a book.

Not used to being ignored, Clarke sat down across from him. “It’s in both our best interests to figure this out. I need to get this inn evaluated and sold by the end of the year. I mean, don’t you want to move on?”

“More than you know.”

“Then let’s do this. I’m a lawyer, I have resources and I can ask questions around town because I’m not local. I can help.”

He looked down at the book in hand, but didn’t open it. Clarke waited, patience thinning, until he finally sighed and put the book back down. “Fine.”

“Okay, let me get my computer.” She stood and took a few steps away before coming back and touching his shoulder. “I like the glasses, by the way.”

He touched them self-consciously. “Thanks.”

Downstairs Miller brought them coffee and sat in one of the arm chairs. Bellamy sat on the couch, arm draped across the back of it, while Clarke paced behind him.

“First and most obvious question. Do you know how you died?”

He glanced down at the coffee mug in his hand. “I don’t remember.”

Bellamy heard her walking behind him and wondered if she ever stopped moving. “How do you not know how you died? Was it pneumonia? Gunshot? Poison?”

“His body was found outside in the woods,” Miller cut in. “Foul play was suspected, but never proved.”

Clarke stopped moving and he wondered if she could see how much that one sentence hurt. He thought maybe so because her next question was less clinical. “What were doing outside?”

“I was coming home.”

“From?”

“Montreal. Can you stop moving, please?”

“Sorry,” she perched on the edge of the chair to his left. “Why were you in Montreal?”

Bellamy glanced at Miller who nodded. “It wasn’t honorable,” he prefaced.

“I’m a lawyer,” Clarke snorted. “I don’t care.”

“Are you aware of the Volstead act?”

“We call it prohibition now, but yeah.”

“Quit dicking around, Bellamy.” Miller looked at Clarke. “He’s trying not to say that he was a bootlegger.”

Clarke grinned and it was the brightest thing he’d seen from her thus far. “Really? That’s so cool.”

“I prefer the term rum runner,” he mumbled, not that anyone in the room cared.

“I thought you owned this inn?”

Miller laughed. “You told her that?”

“Wait, did you lie to me?” Clarke accused.

“It was almost true,” Bellamy defended himself. “If I had lived.”

“It was his fiance’s place,” Miller explained and Bellamy appreciated the face he didn’t have to tell the story himself. “Her parents died and in the will they’d left the inn to Gina but only on the condition of her marriage.”

“Are you shitting me?”

“Her father was old fashioned, even for back then. She was the one with a passion for this place, she couldn’t wait to renovate it and make it a staple of the area. She had so many dreams.”

“Is that why you were marrying her? So she could inherit the place?”

Bellamy shifted on his seat, not comfortable with the answer. “I wanted her to have what she wanted, and if it had been much longer John would have tried to sell out from underneath her.”

“John?”

“John Murphy,” Miller supplied. “Gina’s half-brother.”

“He wasn’t exactly the best person,” Bellamy explained. “Which is why his step-father didn’t pass it on to him and he resented Gina for taking what he thought should have been his.”

“Okay, that all makes sense but I don’t understand the rum running. Where did that come in?”

“It was a means to an end. I thought I could pay John off, and he’d go away, and then Gina and I could go about the rest of our lives.”

“You really cared about her, didn’t you?”

“She was real,” Bellamy said by way of answer. “And she was good.”

Bellamy saw Clarke glance at Miller before she leaned forward. “Why does that sound like you don’t think you aren’t?”

“Maybe that’s why I’m cursed.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I got conked out by a vase and woke up on a couch with a quilt,” Clarke said with a rueful grin. “A bad man doesn’t do that.”

Bellamy looked at Clarke and Miller, got up and walked out.

“He does that a lot,” he heard Clarke say.

“I think it’s probably hard to say goodbye.”

He found solace in the parlor, and in the old copy of A Christmas Carol which Gina had loved so much. Bellamy could vividly remember telling her it was fantastical nonsense and she had teased him about not believing in ghosts.

John had ruined the moment, commenting about how someone had approached him about buying the hotel and how much money could be made if Gina would just sell.

“There you are.”

Clarke had come into the room wearing a soft sweater and he could still feel the places she had touched him like the remnants of a burn.

“Nate went home for the night.” She crossed her arms and took a few slow steps towards him. “But I’m not tired, and I don’t know if you sleep or not, but we could get still get some work-“

“Not tonight, Miss Griffin.”

“Clarke,” she corrected. “Bellamy-“

“Not tonight,” he interrupted her. “Tomorrow, but I’m done for the night. And to answer your question, no, I don’t sleep.”

“Then I’d appreciate it if you didn’t come into my room.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“You already have.”

“Point taken. I will not enter your room without permission going forward.”

“Thank you.”

She turned, probably to go to bed, but for some reason Bellamy wasn’t ready to put a name to, he called her back. Maybe he just wasn’t as content with alone as he thought.

“What does your husband think of you being here?”

Clarke turned back and he didn’t know if she read his mood or if it was just instinct, she settled onto the couch next to him. “No husband. No wife either. And don’t say anything about being an old maid, okay? The world has changed since you were in it last.”

“I’d imagine so, since in my day women didn’t have wives.” He paused, unsure if he wanted to ask but knowing he wouldn’t be able to hold back the question. “People do still fall in love though, don’t they?”

“Some do,” and he thought there was a hint of regret in her voice but he didn’t know her well enough to be certain. “I haven’t. Night, Bellamy.”

Clarke walked away from Bellamy and as she passed by the empty ballroom she heard voices whispering to each other, hushed and hurried.

She stopped and stared at the door, terrified without really understanding why. She didn’t want to know what was on the other side of the door but she absolutely would not be able to go to sleep if all she could think about were ghosts whispering behind closed doors, plotting the gods only knew what.

Stepping forward she reached out to turn the knob but pulled back at the last moment. She took a deep breath, steadied herself, and before she could talk herself out of it she turned the knob and pushed the door open.

There was only silence and dark.

“Fuck, this place is weird.”

Clarke turned and walked way, and didn’t see the door shut quietly behind her.


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning Clarke spent a good hour in her bed looking for more information about the mystery she’d found herself in and eventually found her way to a book she’d discovered online about haunted hotels in New England, chapter three of which was about the Hollygrove.

She was turning the page on her tablet when her bathroom door swung open.

Clarke stared at it for a second. “Bellamy?”

But there was no response, and now it felt as if she was being watched so Clarke quickly dressed and stepped out into the hall. She’d make breakfast, she decided, where there had been no weird noises, no mysterious movements by doors and eventually Bellamy would show up to eat.

As she put her hand on the bannister to head downstairs she heard a noise above her, but this one she recognized. Clarke made her way to the top floor of the inn which she thought would have just been an attic but when she stepped into the room it wasn’t filled with clutter and boxes.

Instead, it held a half naked male.

Okay, Clarke thought as she gripped the doorknob. This, this she understood.

She knew good old fashioned lust when it whipped through her.

He turned around and it was at this point she realized he’d been ironing his shirt, but she only noticed because he was pulling it on and covering skin she’d loved to have look at a little bit longer.

“Morning, Clarke.”

Should have stuck with Miss Griffin, Clarke told herself as she stepped forward and tried to look anywhere except at the man who was dressing in front of her. She spotted a picture frame of him with a woman. “Gina?”

“Yes.”

“She was beautiful.”

“Yes, she was.” He pulled the suspenders over his shirt. “I’m willing to share with you whatever details are pertinent to figuring this out, but my room is off limits.”

Clarke fumbled for a minute because she hadn’t thought about it being his room. “Yeah, well, so is mine so stop with the door thumping.”

He passed by her, close enough she could smell whatever aftershave he’d put on. Did ghosts need to shave?

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Let’s just get back to work.”

“Agreed.”

“But first, breakfast.”

“Ugh,” Clarke complained but followed him. “Hungriest ghost ever.”

 

Bellamy followed Clarke downstairs and they both stopped when they came into the bar area to find Miller talking with someone, both of them leaning towards each other in a which Bellamy thought was familiar.

They both looked over and almost immediately Clarke stepped in front of him, as if by her mere presence she could protect him.

It was sweet if unnecessary because he just walked away as the gentleman who wasn’t Miller introduced himself.

“Hi, I’m Monty.”

“Hi,” Clarke held out her hand and Bellamy could feel her glare burning the back of his skull but he kept walking into the kitchen. “I’m sorry about my friend. I’m Clarke Griffin, I’m the executor of the trust.”

“Oh, right. 911 girl.”

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry. My friend Jasper works for dispatch and he was telling me about the woman who kept calling Nate’s dad because the old inn was creaking.”

“Yeah,” Bellamy heard Clarke agree and because he could all but hear her grinding her teeth he couldn’t help but grin. “I bet he doesn’t get those sorts of calls from Nate.”

“No,” Monty agreed cheerfully. “He’s pretty self sufficient, which I am not and is actually the reason I’m here. The bar’s water pipes busted last night and I’m hoping you could open up the tavern.”

“No,” Bellamy called, making his way back into the room quicker than he’d left it.

Clarke gave him a look before turning back to Monty. “What he means is we’d need more time to talk about specifics.”

“Specifically, no.”

Monty gave the room a weird look, like he knew he was being left out of something, but not sure what. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Monty.”

Bellamy thought about coming up with a fake answer, but since he was currently blaming everything on Clarke, he looked at her.

She looked angry but covered it quickly as she turned to Monty with a smile on her face. “This is BJ.”

“Absolutely not,” he argued, not caring how it might look to Monty.

Clarke pasted a clearly fake grin. “If you’ll excuse us just for a moment,” and then she grabbed his hand and pulled him into another room. Was it possible, he wondered, to become familiar with the jolt which was caused by their skin touching?

“What is wrong with you?” she hissed. “Do you want people to figure out who you really are?”

“I want him to leave,” Bellamy answered, stepping closer than he would have normally considered polite because he was too frustrated to think about things like propriety. Something about her just called to be crowded. “And if you didn’t have the prospect of being useful, I’d be finding a way for you to be gone as well.”

“You know, for a guy who was going to own an inn, you’re shit at hospitality.”

Bellamy laughed, he couldn’t help it. She had a point. “You know, this is shaping up to be the worse Christmas since I died.”

Clarke smiled, and took his hand again. “Just follow my lead, okay BJ?”

He let her lead him back, taking a slower pace this time. It was odd having someone who was so free with her touch. When he and Gina had courted they’d spent many hours together, but few of them included the casual physical affection Clarke had displayed over the course of the past day.

It was something he worried he might get used to. “Where in the world did you get BJ?”

“Bellamy Jacob Blake,” Clarke recited. “I’ve done my research.”

They came back into the tavern area, which mostly just consisted of a bar and a few tables, to find Monty and Miller talking only a few inches apart.

Clarke stood right beside him, close enough he could feel her clothing brush against his every time she moved. “Sorry about that. BJ is an old friend of mine and had been doing a genealogical research of his family and we realized the trust I was in charge had a connection to his great-great uncle.”

“Oh? I’m pretty well versed in the history of the town, who are you connected to?”

“Bellamy Blake,” Clarke cut in before he could say anything himself. He resisted rolling his eyes, but only just. “Bellamy was his uncle.”

“Oh? I didn’t realize there were more Blakes out there.”

“From the father’s side.”

“Ah,” Monty nodded and Bellamy looked at Clarke who was very pointedly not looking at him. “That makes sense. We should get you together with your cousin then.”

“Cousin?” Bellamy asked but was ignored as Miller apologized to the man he was apparently infatuated with.

“I wish we could help you, Monty. But the staff is away for the holidays.”

“I’d bring my own people, we’d take care everything. You know we’ve got the best bartender, Nate, so it’s not like we’d be bringing you down with bad Yelp reviews.”

Bellamy scoffed.

“Something in your throat?” Clarke asked, overly sweet.

“No, I just don’t believe Monty here has the best bartender.”

Monty apparently took no offense to the accusation and Bellamy briefly considered the possibility he was the most affable person on the planet. “Have you ever been to my bar?”

“No,” Bellamy readily admitted. “But the only bartender I trust is myself.”

Monty grinned and anyone else Bellamy knew would have been insulted or mad, but he looked excited. “Prove it.”

“What?” Miller and Clarke both asked simultaneously.

“Sure,” Bellamy agreed because he thought it might be fun to watch Clarke squirm some more.

“No,” Clarke argued. “He’s very bad it. You’re bad it.”

Bellamy ignored her. “Tonight, bring companions. By then I should have secured the ingredients needed to prove my veracity.”

“I have no idea what you just said, but I’ll see you tonight,” Monty agreed as he held out his hand which Bellamy shook.

“Wonderful,” he heard Clarke mutter as she walked away towards the bar.

Miller rolled his eyes at the whole thing and walked with Monty towards the front door which Bellamy thought was gentlemanly.

“What happened to your solitude?” Clarke accused as she settled herself on one of the bar stools.

Bellamy walked over to the bar shelves and started to take a mental inventory of what they had. “Well, your presence has very well negated that possibility. I may be dead, but I will not allow my honor to be questioned.”

“Mhm.”

He looked at her because that simple sound suggested she didn’t believe him. “It’s the principle of the thing.”

“Right.”

He didn’t like what she might be implying, that he was somehow lonely and looking to connect with people, so he turned around and did what he usually did when he didn’t like the direction a conversation was taking. He complained.

“This bar is in deplorable conditions. Where’s the Fernet-Branca?”

There was a brief pause before she spoke up from her place at the bar. “What else?”

He turned to see Clarke had procured paper and pen from somewhere. “What are you doing?”

“Making a shopping list,” and her smile could almost be termed affectionate. “If you’re going to do this, you’re going to do it right.”

Bellamy turned, not quite sure what to make of the shift he’d just felt in the vicinity of his heart and started rattling off items he’d need to Clarke, knowing she’d take care of the rest.

 

By city standards, Clarke had not dressed up for the spontaneous party going on downstairs. But by small town standards, whatever they might be, Clarke was worried it might be obvious.

She’d changed from her jeans and sweater to an aline skirt and blouse, she’d packed them because she’d always been of the mindset it was better to have too many clothes than to not have enough.

And maybe she fixed her hair a little and maybe she’d touched up her lipstick. It didn’t have to mean anything.

She was nervous for Bellamy though, he hadn’t had any considerable human contact in a century and it might be difficult for him to get used to the noise and proximity of fifteen plus people in the inn.

Then again, Clarke thought as she walked into the inn’s tavern, maybe not.

He was at the bar with a pretty blonde who was as tall as him. She was laughing as he handed her a drink.

“That’s a hanky-panky,” the woman seemed to guess after a sip and Bellamy nodded.

“Good taste.”

“Can you make a Singapore Sling?” she asked.

“Is that anything like a Straight Sling?” he countered.

“Let’s find out,” and she started grabbing bottles as Bellamy did the same.

“Looks like you’re having fun,” Clarke said as she slid onto a seat at the end of the bar.

Bellamy set down the bottle he’d been holding to stand closer to her. “She’s good, but I don’t think she’s the best bartender on the planet.”

“And are you?”

“She’s yet to be convinced, but I haven’t given up yet.”

Clarke didn’t like the idea she might be jealous Bellamy was spending time with someone else so she leaned around him to the girl with braids in her hair. “Hi, I’m Clarke.”

“Oh, hi! I’m Harper, Monty’s bartender and BJ’s nemesis.”

“I would go for nuisance,” Bellamy corrected.

Harper laughed and picked up two full glasses. “I’m going to go interrupt Monty and Miller and tease them both about not making a move on the other.”

Clarke waved bye as Bellamy leaned against the bar so their arms touched. “You look nice.”

“Not a lot of reasons to dress up in a town this small,” Clarke evaded and pointedly didn’t try to guess whether or not she was blushing. “So I figured I’d take the chance while I could.”

“What can I make you?”

“You know what, surprise me.”

He grinned and the tension she’d constantly seen on his face appeared to have melted away for the time being.

This must have been what he’d been like when he was alive. Bright and charming and it was no wonder Gina had agreed to marry him. And before she could delve to far into that thought, her phone went off and she groaned when she saw Marcus’ name on the caller id.

“Hello.”

“Clarke, it’s a property appraisal. It shouldn’t be taking this long.”

“I know,” she glanced at Bellamy. “This whole ghost issue is a bigger problem than I’d anticipated.”

Bellamy, who had obviously been listening, gave her a look which was unamused.

“Well, at least is sounds like you’re enjoying yourself. Are you at a party?”

Clarke didn’t know whether or not she should feel guilty. “I am.”

“Good, I’m glad you’re getting out but get the appraisal done as soon as you can Clarke, and then get back. Your mother says hi, by the way.”

“Hi back,” Clarke responded before hanging up.

“Everything okay,” Bellamy asked as he set a drink almost the same color as his eyes in front of her.

“Yeah, just my boss slash future step-dad calling to check in.”

“That sounds complicated.”

“It can be.” She took a careful sip of the drink but was surprised by how good it tasted. “Wow. What is this?”

“The Bees Knees,” he grinned and Clarke could feel the beginning of a stammer in the back of her throat but thankfully Harper came back over and distracted Bellamy.

“There should be a Christmas tree here.”

“Why?” he asked her.

“Because it’s Christmas.”

“There used to be a Christmas tree in the front room every year,” Bellamy mused out loud and Clarke didn’t think there was any way to get him to stop talking in front of Harper without being obvious. She could throw an olive at him? Were there olives nearby?

“Oh? I didn’t think there’d ever been a tree here, at least for as long as I’ve lived in town. When was this?”

“Back when,” Clarke answered for him. “When I became the executor I did a lot of research and there were photos and articles. I passed most of the info on to BJ.”

“I’ve always found this place to be so romantic, you know?” Clarke did not look at Bellamy as Harper went on. “Ghosts and tragic loves. Scandalous marriages.”

“Scandalous marriages?”

“Have you heard of Bellamy Blake?”

Clarke held back a smile as she met Bellamy’s gaze for a brief moment. “I have.”

“Well, he was engaged to the heiress of the property when he died. A month afterwards she married a local boy and they had a baby. People always gossiped about if she married because she was already with child, but it didn’t matter. The baby didn’t survive and neither did Gina. She died a few days later in this inn.”

Bellamy paused and Clarke saw a quick expression cross his face before he excused himself.

“Is he okay?”

“I think so,” Clarke took another long drink from her glass. “I’m just going to check on him.”

Clarke started peeking into rooms until she found him in what she considered the family room, where he was drinking something straight from a bottle.

“Bellamy?”

“I know this feels like a game to you,” he started and his voice was tight as if he was barely holding back. “But this is my life. _My life._ It’s not something to be gossiped about over drinks. It may seem like a long time to you, some story which happened to someone else. But it will never be just a story to me, because it was real and I’m real and it doesn’t feel that long ago to me.”

Clarke reached out and very carefully took the drink from him and replaced it with her own hand. “I’m sorry.”

He stared at their hands for a full second before blinking and looked back up at her. “Before you ask, no. I didn’t know about the baby or what happened to Gina.”

“Your sister didn’t tell you?”

“I begged her not to. She told me about the marriage and that was all I wanted to know.”

“Was the baby yours?”

“No.”

Clarke tilted her head, not sure if it was her right to question him. “Can you be sure?”

He looked down at their linked hands, raised them between their bodies. “We got little farther than this in our time together.”

She smiled, hoping she could defuse the tension. “Poor Gina.”

He blinked again, adorably confused and entirely oblivious. “Excuse me?”

“She probably wanted you so bad.”

He choked on his laugh. “I beg your pardon?”

“You don’t think women have sex drives? I mean, not everyone does, but if she did? No way she didn’t look at you and want. You’re such a tease, Bellamy Blake.”

He huffed out a laugh but the tenseness in his shoulder eased some. “I was the boy from the wrong side of the tracks, Clarke. I wanted to do right by her.”

“That’s honorable, but it doesn’t sound like love.”

“We were fond of each other,” and it felt like one the most honest things he’d said to her. “We would have had a good partnership, and a good life, but no, we didn’t have the kind of love I think you’re referring to.”

“But you’d have been happy? Both of you?”

“Yes.”

“Then that’s all that matters.”

He didn’t say anything right away, just stood with her in the middle of the room with their fingers linked. Clarke didn’t know Gina, but if it had been her engaged to a man like Bellamy? She couldn’t imagine not having more of him than the holding of hands, couldn’t imagine a world where he was alive and she didn’t actively want him.

Hell, he was _dead_ and she wanted him.

“I can’t… I can’t keep listening to it like it wasn’t something which happened to people I knew but if you think there’s something there, go ahead.”

“Thank you, and I’ll only tell you something if it’s something you need to know.”

“And if you can, find out if she was happy.”

“I promise.”

She thought about kissing him, it was such a lovely moment for it but before she could decide if he would welcome it or not there was a burst of cold air and then an excited exclamation and bright, sharp laughter following it. Clarke saw Bellamy’s face drop with surprise.

“What?”

“Nothing, it just sounded so much like…” he let the sentence die off and together, hands still linked, they walked back to the tavern and Bellamy stared at a woman with long dark hair, a drink already in her hand and smile on her face.

“Bellamy? What is it?”

“She looks just like her.”

“Like who?”

“My sister.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i didn't realize how short this chapter was, so i may post the next one sooner than planned to make up for it

“Let’s go meet her,” Clarke suggested. “She’s probably your niece.”

“Cousin. I’d be her cousin according to the story you wove earlier.”

Clarke smiled up at him. “You’d still be family. I’ll go with you.”

Bellamy nodded and fell into step beside her as they made their way across the room. Clarke took the lead, which he appreciated, holding out her hand.

“Hi, my name is Clarke. I’m the executor of the inn, and this is BJ. This is going to sound rude, but you look familiar.”

“That’s not rude,” the woman assured on a laugh. “It happens a lot in this town. Is the picture still hanging around here?” she asked Miller.

“I can’t remember,” Miller evaded.

“Well, if I look familiar it’s because I’m apparently the spitting image of my great-great grandmother, which is convenient since I’m named after her. Octavia Williams, soon to be Octavia Beaumont.”

Bellamy saw the woman hold up her left hand, a diamond flashing from her ring finger.

“Congratulations.”

Bellamy simply nodded in agreement.

“Thanks. So, yeah, if I look familiar it’s because you’ve seen Octavia the First’s picture around here somewhere. I thought it was the attic?”

“I have been going through the boxes up there,” Clarke lied. “That must have been it. It’s so weird to meet you because BJ is, I think, technically your cousin.”

“What? That’s so cool, I didn’t think I had any of those.”

Bellamy finally found his voice, “It would be on your great-great-grandfather’s side.”

“Oh, that bastard?”

“I’m sorry?” Clarke asked.

“Octavia the first and Bellamy had a deadbeat dad. He ran off when she was like three, I think, forcing his wife to raise them on her own. From what I understand it was very tough and Bellamy did a lot to keep the family alive. So it makes sense that David Blake, their dad, went off and sewed more wild oats. Hold on.”

She walked away and grabbed a man who was at least six inches taller than Bellamy, and the way she smiled up at him-and more importantly the way he smiled back-indicated to Bellamy he was the fiancé.

“Lincoln, this is my newly discovered cousin BJ. BJ, this is my fiancé Lincoln Beaumont. Oh, and Clarke who is taking care of the hotel until the estate can sell it.”

Lincoln shook both their hands and Bellamy couldn’t believe he was meeting his sister’s great-great-grandchild. His niece.

Clarke squeezed his hand and leaned against him, as if she knew he needed an anchor.

“It’s too bad it has to be sold, it’s such a wonderful place with so much history.”

“I keep telling Lincoln, if he wants to keep it open and local, we should just buy it.”

“They trust is motivated,” Clarke told them. “And I’ve got sway, so if you’re serious I can help make it happen.”

“Really?”

“It would almost be like keeping it in the family, wouldn’t it? I mean your great-uncle or whatever was almost the owner.”

“Lincoln,” Octavia started but he shook his head.

“We’ll talk about it later.”

“Do you have a business card?”

“Not on me, but I’ll pass it onto Nate and I’m sure can get it to you.”

“Awesome, I’m going to get a drink and then make out with my fiancé in a closet.”

Said fiancé shook his head, amused and in love. “BJ, make sure Clarke puts your info on the card too. I don’t have a lot of family to invite to the wedding so it would be cool to have one there.”

“I can do that,” Clarke assured Octavia before the other couple walked away.

“Are you okay?” she asked him quietly.

“I need to be alone.”

She didn’t let go of his hand right away. Instead she leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “You know where I am if you need me.”

He nodded and went to find quiet.

 

 

After the party wrapped up Clarke was looking out the kitchen window in the direction Nate said Bellamy had gone.

“I’m afraid I pushed too hard,” Clarke said, mostly to herself.

“I think he needed someone to push hard.”

“It’s just… he accused of me of thinking it was just a game and he’s not wrong. I forget this isn’t just history, this is his history.” She glanced back at the window. “He just seems so alive, it’s easy to forget he doesn’t belong here.”

“He is alive,” Nate pointed out. “Just not in the traditional sense.”

“I wonder what he was like when he was alive,” Clarke sat down at the little table pushed against the wall. “Was he as stubborn then as he is now? I mean, don’t know how Gina put up with him.”

Nate laughed and sat across from her. “I’m sensing a bit of jealousy.”

“No way. That would be crazy.” Nate just stared at her. “It doesn’t matter, I have to go back to work. I can’t stay here for an indeterminate amount of time. I have a job and a life to get back to. Besides, it’s better to go before I ruin it.”

“Ruin it?”

“It’s my thing,” Clarke explained, trying to sound casual to hide the hurt. “I ruin relationships. I bomb them usually, so there’s recovering it if I change my mind. I mean, you’ve seen how we go at it.”

“I have, but Clarke? It has been a long time since Bellamy’s had the pleasure of fighting a beautiful woman. Don’t give up on him just yet.”

 

 

Bellamy came back to the inn after everyone had gone to bed. There had been a part of him which had hoped Clarke would still be up, waiting for him, but that was foolish.

He walked down the hallway towards the piano, hit a random key and wondered if he had messed thing up with Clarke by walking out earlier.

It had been a long time since he cared about what someone might think of him.

He heard a laugh and looked up, shocked to see not Clarke or Miller standing at the end of the hallway, but Gina.

Gina?

She was dressed the way he had seen her last, dripping green silk and a wide smile as she left the hallway and headed towards the kitchen.

Unable to stop himself, he followed.


	6. Chapter 6

Clarke drove back to the Hollygrove Inn with her single errand done. She parked out front and silenced Marcus’ call when her phone vibrated. She’d call him back later.

“Bellamy?” Clarke called, heading up the stairs to see if he was reading in his little nook on the second floor. “Bellamy?” she called again when she didn’t see him.

A noise caught her attention. Thinking it might be Bellamy, she headed towards the nearby guest room but once she walked into it, the door slammed shut.

Clarke believed in evolution because there were times humans knew, through no logical reasoning, that they were in trouble. She felt that now. An instinctive, primal knowledge inside her screamed get out, get out now.

She was in danger.

Clarke ran back to the door but the knob wouldn’t turn, she bangd on the door, “Bellamy! Bellamy, this isn’t funny!”

Backing up from the door she looked around the room and figured she try the windows but as she tried to push them up the glass in the chandelier above her started moving, an eerie sound since there no reason for them shift.

Looking around, she saw the open bathroom door and everything beyond it was a terrifying black but she heard a voice from inside whisper cruelly, “Go away.”

Clarke screamed almost at the same moment Bellamy came storming through the door. He immediately grabbed her and wrapped his arms around her.

“Are you okay? What happened?”

She pushed away from him. “You didn’t have to do that!”

“Do what?”

“Scare the shit out of me. If you want me to go, I get it, but just say so.”

He looked genuinely confused for her accusation. “I don’t want you to go.”

“You don’t?”

“Whatever just happened, Clarke, it wasn’t me. I heard you scream and I came straight away.”

A tear fell from her eye, left over from the terror. This time when she looked into the bathroom the lighting was dim, but she could see the sink and the mirror above it. No voices whispered from its depths.

“It wasn’t you?”

“No.”

Stupidly or not, she believe him. “What about the doors slamming in my bedroom?”

“No.”

“The voices in the ballroom?”

“Those things weren’t me,” he reached up to gently brush away the lingering tear with the pad of his thumb. “I promise you. Let’s go downstairs, Clarke.”

“I don’t want to be in this house,” and if she sounded just a little pleading she didn’t care.

“Whatever you want.”

He curled his finger around her still gloved hands and together they walked out the front door to the edge of the fenced in yard. The cold helped, his hand in hers did too, and so by the time they stopped she still felt shaky, but her mind was focused.  “There’s a second ghost. I can’t get you to move on and I can see you, how I am supposed to get rid of a second one who won’t even face me?”

“It’s extraordinary.”

The understatement was enough to make her want to kick him. “What, you’ve never noticed? Didn’t bump into each other in the kitchen when you both got up for a midnight snack?”

He smirked at her sarcasm but answered honestly. “No. I’ve ever had memories, almost as if I’m reliving parts of my old life, but they weren’t ghosts.”

“You don’t think.”

He looked concerned at that. Despite the fact he was a hundred years old, give or take a year, he still didn’t understand that had happened to him. Whatever memories he was experiencing could be the work of another ghost. Clarke didn’t like the idea of someone poking in Bellamy’s brain, didn’t like the idea there was something in this world which might hurt him.

“Look,” he started slowly, his eyes returning back to the house before looking down at her. “I know you have to get back to your job. I know you’ve got a life waiting for you which isn’t here, but if there’s any way you can stay… I don’t think I can do this without you.”

Clarke stared at him, and there was an instant when she thought about weighing the pros and cons but she tossed out the list before she could make it.

“Of course I’ll stay.”

He smiled and together they walked back towards the inn but stopped when he noticed her car.

“There is a fir tree atop your auto.”

Clarke wondered if she’d ever get to used to the way he spoke, or if it would always be endearing. “Not just a fir tree, a Christmas tree. I figured since it had been so long since you’d had one and I thought, if I’ve pushing this too hard or running you over, it could also be an apology.”

“You don’t have anything to apologize for Clarke, but thank you just the same for the tree.”

There was a moment here, Clarke thought, she wasn’t sure what it was or where it was leading, but she enjoyed it just the same.

“Shall we bring it inside?”

“We shall.”

 

 

Bellamy went upstairs to get the ornaments, dusty from disuse but Clarke had assured him they would be vintage now and no one would know the difference.

They got the tree lit with relative ease, mostly because Clarke had purchased lights on her way home so there was no need to untangle them. He had not been aware of the tradition, back in his day lighting the tree with lights hadn’t been common but once they had the sparkling lights wrapped around the branches Bellamy had to admit, it was something almost magical.

“Now for the ornaments. Are they any special ones you want to hang?”

“Not that I can remember, but it has been while.”

She smiled up at him from the box of ornaments on the floor. “If I see something which looks special I’ll ask you first.”

“I appreciate the thought.”

Bellamy reached down and picked up an ornament at random whereas Clarke seemed to carefully choose one before hanging. They worked together in quiet comradery for 15 minutes before Clarke spoke. “Can I ask you a question?”

“I’ll refrain from pointing out you just did.”

Her smile was a little crooked. “It’s not a very festive question.”

“Very few of our conversation thus far have been particularly festive, why start now?”

“What is it like? When you’re not here, like this.”

Bellamy paused and thought briefly of lying but decided he didn’t want the pretense. “Like an endless nightmare.” She didn’t look away but he saw a little bit of regret in her expression. “I want to wake but I can’t.”

“So for 12 days,” she started but stopped herself. “Why 12 days? And why at Christmas?”

“I don’t know.” Despite what he’d said Bellamy decided the mood was too morose for his liking, so he stepped back to admire the tree. “You know, I haven’t had a real Christmas for a hundred years. It used to be my favorite time of the year. I’d almost forgotten.”

“It was my dad’s favorite too,” Clarke told him and the way she worded it, it was clear what she meant. “I’ve always made a point of getting a tree, even though it’s usually just me.”

“Usually alone? I find that difficult to believe.”

“Believe it.”

“The men,” and he remembered when she’d corrected his comment about husbands to add wives as well. “And women of your time must not be very intelligent.”

She looked up, surprised, and the moment held and lengthened until the room grew warm and his heart beat seemed to slow. Or would be. Damn him, if his heart could beat, she would stop it.

There was something incredibly vulnerable and beautiful about her in the moment and seeming to remember that, she moved back to the box of ornaments and picked one up at random.

“What?” She looked down. “Tell me, after all I’ve been more than forthcoming with you.”

“You said the people in my time must not be very intelligent, but it’s not them. It’s me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I want to be in love, the kind of swept up, all-consuming in love, but I don’t think I know how.”

Bellamy was confused. “It’s not a trait to be learned.”

“God, I hope that’s not true because if I can’t learn how to do it, there’s no hope for me. My parents divorced when I was young and I was collateral damage and now my that my dad is gone,” she finished the sentence with a shrug.

He finished hanging the ornament he had in his hand before walking around to other side of the tree where she stood. “Clarke, we’ve only known each other for a short time, under unique circumstances, but I feel fairly certain you have an incredibly large capacity for love.”

She stared at him, appearing to him to be speechless for the first time. “Thank you. And for that lovely thought, you get to put the angel on the tree.”

Understanding she might need, or want, a change of conversation he took the angel and grabbed the nearby step stool so he could more easily put the angel on the top of the tree.

When he stepped back, putting the step stool out of the way, he stood by Clarke.

“If my theory is wrong, and nothing changes, I’ll make sure you always have a tree for Christmas.”

Moved beyond words, Bellamy reached down and took her hand.

He knew it had happened before, but there was something different about holding hands when they weren’t grabbing each other to lead them somewhere. There was a connection in this contact, a promise of sorts he couldn’t quite put into words.

There was no other reason to reach for her but for the comfort and pleasure of the other’s touch.

She wrapped her fingers around his and for the first time in his life, dead or otherwise, Bellamy knew what it was like to be in love.

 

 

Clarke stepped out of her bathroom, neither finished brushing her teeth but also, Bellamy discovered, not done arguing.

“I said no.”

“I insist.”

“I don’t care.”

Ignoring her arguments Bellamy walked into the room. “We’re talking about your safety here.”

“I’ve slept in this room for days now and nothing scary, or nothing too scary, has happened.”

“Circumstances have changed,” he reminded her. “We know of another presence now. I will be in this chair, in the corner, if anything untoward happens.”

He passed by her, close but not quite close enough, to pick up a chair and move it to the bathroom doorway. “You don’t sleep.”

“I will not be hovering over your bed if that’s your concern. In fact,” he turned the chair around so it faced the bathroom. “There, now your privacy is assured.”

She hesitated, he could feel her standing right behind him, but as soon she moved towards the bed, he wished her a good night.

“Night, Bellamy.”

It was hours, and half a book later, Bellamy first heard the whispers of something else in the house. It had been hard to hear at first, the wind was whistling angrily outside and the heaters would kick on and off throughout the night.

But he heard the soft whisper in a familiar voice.

“Bellamy.”

He took of his glasses and left both them and the book on the chair and headed towards the bedroom door. Looking out, he couldn’t see anything but there was the urge to go in search of the voice, of Gina, and it was almost impossible to say no.

But he looked inside at Clarke sleeping peacefully and knew there was no way he could leave her defenseless. Walking back inside he grabbed the edges of the blanket, she pushed them off while moving in her sleep, and pulled them back up to her shoulders.

He tried to finish the book but was too restless to focus on the words, too worried about the voices which echoed in the house and the woman they seemed to be focused on.

When she woke the next morning he was staring out the window, watching for Miller’s truck.

“How did you not sleep?”

He smiled as he looked over at her. “Uneventfully.”

The sound of a car on the road pulled his attention and he saw Miller’s truck park in its usual spot. “Miller’s here, we’ll be downstairs whenever you’re ready.”

 

 

Nate pulled the pancakes out of the warmer and turned to Clarke who was cutting up fruit to go along with breakfast. “Two ghosts?”

“Apparently,” Clarke scooped the fruit into the bowl and grabbed another strawberry. “Any idea who it could be?”

“No,” Miller admitted. “Whenever anything happened I just assumed it was Bellamy.”

“Understandable.”

“Let’s review what we know and what we assume. There are two ghosts, one making pancakes. There’s a pretty good chance the one making pancakes was murdered.”

“I’m still hoping for tragic fall,” he added over his shoulder.

“Dead and an optimist, I like it, but let’s pretend that’s not how it went down. There are two suspects; Murphy, who wanted the inn sold but couldn’t if you married Gina, and the guy you were running alcohol for. What was his name?”

“He went by Pike, and he wasn’t very fond of my quitting on him.”

Clarke’s fingers stilled. “You quit?”

“I was in over my head, and Gina didn’t want me to keep doing it.”

“I know you’ve said before, but where were you as of your last memory?”

“In the woods beyond the manor. I left my partner, Dax, back in Montreal with Pike so I could get back in time for Christmas. I even saw her,” he said, almost wistfully.

“Gina?”

“Yeah, on the front porch, right before I-“ he stopped so suddenly Clarke looked up and almost went to him when he raised a hand to touch the back of his head. He looked at both Nate and Clarke with something akin to astonishment. “I was struck in the back of the head. I hadn’t been able to recall that.”

“Well, if you saw Gina that definitely means she didn’t kill you.”

“Was she a suspect?” Bellamy asked as he moved towards her. Nate looked unimpressed by her theory.

“Everyone is suspect who was alive back then,” she explained, mostly for Nate’s sake. “Because if she didn’t like you rum running, she would have been pissed to find out why you were in Montreal.”

“I didn’t tell her what I was doing.”

Clarke laughed and ate a piece of strawberry. “She knew, women always know those sorts of things. How long were you in Canada?”

“A couple of weeks, maybe less?”

Shit, Clarke thought. Shit, this was it. This was a piece of the puzzle. “Two days less than two weeks?”

“We left on the 13th, came back on the 24th.”

Clarke reached across the island separating them and covered Bellamy’s hand with her own. “Bellamy, that’s exactly how long you’re real for.”

Her phone vibrated next to her and seeing the name, Clarke released Bellamy’s hand to answer. “Marcus.”

“I know I wanted you to finish the Inn before the end of the year but I have to call you back. A senator just died and it’s all hands on deck, including yours. I need you back in the city today. Can you do that?”

Clarke knew how important this was. A senator’s death would be the most important thing the firm would handle all year and if she wanted that promotion, wanted to be part of the firm going forward, she’d have to go back for a few days.

“I can do that, I’ll see you this afternoon.”

“Thanks, Clarke.”

She hung up and looked down at the bisected strawberry.

“You have to go back.”

Clarke nodded and wasn’t surprised when Bellamy reached across to cover her hand with is. “I understand.”

Nate helped her carry her suitcase downstairs and she was already regretting leaving. “He’s counting on you to be back by Christmas.”

“I will, and we’ll figure this out.”

“That, Clarke, has been by goal since you refused to leave the first day you got here.”

“You planned this?”

“Not all of it,” he gave her a look she clearly read. “But I couldn’t bear the idea of him spending another Christmas alone in this house.”

After hugging Nate, Clarke walked outside into the snow where Bellamy waited for her by the driver’s side door of her car. “I wanted to give you something before you left. Something to remember me by.”

“Forget you? Impossible.”

“I’m proof the impossible is possible,” he reminded her and when she saw what he held in her hands she immediately recognized it as a pocket watch. “It was my mother’s, she’d gotten it from her father, and no matter how poor we got it was the one thing we never pawned. I haven’t been able to open it since I came back, and it may disappear as soon as you cross the property line, but I want you to have it.”

She covered it with her hand. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“I will be back before Christmas. I promise.” Clarke curved fingers around the metal, still cool despite his touch. She looked at him, a desperate fear in her gut suggested this might be the last she’d ever see him.

Kiss me, she thought desperately, as if he might be able to hear. Kiss me you idiot before I drive away.

But he didn’t and she still didn’t trust herself not to screw this up so she opened her car door and slid inside with Bellamy’s ‘be safe’ echoing inside her ear.

The watch didn’t disappear once she pulled onto the road and for no logical reason she could think of, it gave her hope.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one more chapter left! it will probably be posted on Friday since I won't be able to make myself hold off till Saturday

Clarke was back in the office, back in the city, and she was surprised there were things she’d missed. Living out in the country had been beautiful and lovely but there was something about her which would always go back to the city.

The sounds and the people and the rush and even the work which had piled up on her desk in her absence and been a kind of familiar welcome. Her time at Hollygrove had left an impact because in the few shorts days she’d been back she’d stopped working long after the sun set. After five she started wrapping things up, heading home before six.

She’d managed to have dinner with a friend and share friendly texts with Niylah, things Clarke had never made time for before. All in all, maybe it was a life she could be happy with, if it wasn’t for one very distinct thing she felt was missing.

Not a thing, she corrected herself as she scanned something to herself at the office. A person.

“Didn’t manage to get the place appraised, huh?” Marcus asked as he stopped beside her at the copier.

“No,” Clarke admitted and thought about coming up an elaborate lie but decided it would be more fun to tell the truth. “I was too being trying to help a ghost figure out why he died with the hope he’d cross over and I’d be able to get the place sold.”

Marcus stared at her, as if not quite understanding the joke. “You can say you were skiing, there’s some great skiing out there.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Too bad,” he dropped a friendly hand on her shoulder. “You need to live a little.”

Clarke smiled, “Thanks, Marcus.”

 

 

Hollygrove had always been quiet during the holidays, which had always pleased Bellamy in the past. The peace and calm had been a balm after months in the darkness but it sat uncomfortably on him now.

It was a difficult thing to admit, which was why he’d never do it out loud, but inwardly he could acknowledge how deeply he missed Clarke’s presence in his life. When Miller wasn’t there Bellamy merely paced the house and the grounds, itching for something but not quite sure what.

 _It’s called friendship_ , he could practically heard Clarke say. _Oh, I’m sorry ‘companionship.’_

He’d gotten used to people, he realized begrudgingly. Craved conversation and simply the presence of another person in the inn with him. If he thought of something funny or read a particularly well written passage in a book he could simply get up and share it with Clarke, but now there was an empty presence where she used to be.

Bellamy wondered if it was possible for a ghost to be haunted by a living person.

“The name Monty is appearing on your special device.”

Miller seemed unimpressed by Bellamy’s attempt at a joke and moved a piece on the chessboard. “It’s a cellphone, jackass, and I’ll call him back. He’s probably calling about the Christmas Eve Dance.”

Bellamy moved his pawn. “I admit to being rusty with regards to social interactions of any kind, much less those of a romantic nature, but he clearly likes you and you like him. Which makes your inaction all the more baffling.”

“Then what?” Miller challenged. “I ask him out, we like each other, what comes next?”

“You’ve been in relationships before, I imagine you know what comes next.”

“Not long term,” Miller argued, shifting in his seat. “And there are extenuating circumstances.”

“You’re referring to the fact you’re losing at chess to a dead man?” Bellamy moved his bishop to take Miller’s knight to prove his point. “It’s your life, don’t use my death as an excuse not to live it.”

“I could say the same to you.”

Bellamy chuckled, but it was humorless. “What woman would want a man in a situation such as my own?”

“Clarke.” Miller moved his own piece to take one of Bellamy’s pawns. “Or at least that’s the impression I got. Didn’t you think so?”

“Clarke is a remarkable woman, and if my circumstances were different I might let myself imagine, but I wouldn’t do that to her.” Bellamy moved his knight to knock over Miller’s king. “It wouldn’t be fair. Besides, we don’t yet know if she’ll return.”

Miller picked up his king. “She’ll come back.”

 

 

“Clarke!” Clarke stopped on her way to the break room when her boss called her name. “I just got word from the appraiser, he’s completed the walk through which means we have just a little over a week to see the place sold. Good job, but from now this is going to be your priority through the end of the year.”

Appraised? Clarke thought to herself, but what she asked was, “What about Christmas?”

Marcus seemed briefly confused. “What about it? I didn’t think you had plans, did you arrange something with your mother?”

Abby had never been one to celebrate any holiday, so she and Clarke had decided over the years there was no need to celebrate them together. It had been Clarke’s father who had picked out trees and hung stockings on the mantle. “Not with Mom. I was planning on going back to the inn.”

“But your work’s done there, and you need to be here for the Christmas Eve party. What would it look like if I announced your promotion and you weren’t there? Priorities, Clarke. Besides, you don’t need to go back to the inn, everything is done there.”

“I don’t need,” Clarke started saying but Marcus was being called to the other side of the office. “I want.”

Clarke was indecisive for days after, not sure if she should go back and risk her job or stay and accept the promotion she’d desperately wanted just days ago.

In the end, she knew what she had to do.

 

 

Bellamy was walking through the back gardens, listless because instead of trying to absorb all the living and learning he could do in 12 days he felt as if he was counting down the clock, waiting for midnight to take him back to the dark.

He took a minute before he registered the sound of the piano’s playing drifting beyond the house to the yard beyond.

He hadn’t thought Miller knew how to play, but intrigued at the prospect of teasing him Bellamy walked towards house. Except it was wasn’t Miller’s fingers dancing along the black and white keys.

It was Clarke.

He leaned against the doorway, dazed and not quite believing what he was seeing was actually happening.

She looked over shoulder but kept playing and he let her finish out the song for no other reason than to get his bearings. “You came back.”

Turning away from the piano, she faced him with an untethered smile. “Priorities.”

They moved to the kitchen where he made her lunch, and having her in this kitchen while he cooked felt so at home his heart ached a little at the dream of it all.

He wasn’t sure if there were any rules about ghosts praying or wishing on stars, but he’d try anything for the shot of having this for good.

“Anymore ghost sightings?”

“Only when I look in the mirror,” he informed her with a smirk as he set a plate in front of her.

She laughed, “That’s good to hear. You got the inn appraised.”

“I did.”

“Why?”

“It’s what you wanted.”

She reached out and grabbed his hand when he would have walked away. He looked at it before glancing back at her. “Thank you, it meant a lot.”

“You helped me, it seemed like the least I could do.”

Clarke sighed and drank from the coffee she’d put too much sugar into. “I don’t think I did much, I mean we haven’t solved anything.”

Bellamy sat across from her and shrugged, not interested in thinking about the clock counting down. “I remembered how I died, that’s more than I had before.”

“Sorry it wasn’t a tragic fall.”

He smiled. “Maybe the next life.”

She smiled back. “Yeah, maybe you’ll get lucky.”

They both heard the front door open and Miller call out to BJ, a name which still made Bellamy grimace, but he was learning to live with it. “What’s he doing here?”

“Come see,” he held out a hand to her and she took it without hesitation and this was another thing he could get used, the casual and almost intimately familiar touch of Clarke’s hand in his. They walked to the front parlor to see Monty and Miller dropping off boxes.

“Clarke,” Miller grinned, stepping forward to hug her. “You made it back.”

“As promised. Monty, it’s nice to see you again.”

“You too. You here for the party?”

“Party?” Clarke repeated, looking to Bellamy and Miller for explanation. “You’re having the Christmas Eve party here?”

“Monty’s pub is still being repaired,” Bellamy explained as Miller and Monty started sorting through the boxes. “And it seemed right to bring it back here, I’ve missed it.”

Clarke leaned against him and it was enough for Bellamy to wrap his arm around her shoulders. “Do you think we should help them? I fear they’ll be lost without it.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” but she didn’t move and he didn’t either.

It was five minutes before they stepped away from the warmth they’d created together to correct Monty that no, all the poinsettas should be not be together and the punch bowl should be by the bar to make it easier to refill.

Throughout the afternoon Bellamy found himself brushing his hand against Clarke’s and she’d run a hand long his shoulders when she passed him. They’d crossed some threshold he thought, and despite the fact he had no idea what was beyond he’d gladly walk through it with Clarke no matter the consequences.

“I have to get ready,” Clarke told him when everything was set and the caterers were putting the final touches on food.

Bellamy squeezed her hand. “I’ll see in a few.”

She kissed his cheek, her hand lingering on his shoulder until she walked away.

 

 

Clarke took one last look in the mirror. She’d brought the dress on a whim, but solely for the purpose of wearing it for Bellamy. For a brief moment she’d thought about find something vintage, maybe something from the decade Bellamy came from but those dresses weren’t her.

And if, like she thought, he cared for _her_ : modern and argumentative and a little bold. So the red dress which the dipping neckline and wide skirt felt like the right choice. Maybe it would make her brave as well as bold.

The knock on her door could be no one but Bellamy so Clarke took one steadying breath before letting him in and the look in his eye was enough to sustain for a year if necessary.

She didn’t think she’d ever been adored, but everything about him did just that and there was no going back for her. Not from this, not from him.

“You look astounding.”

“You look incredibly handsome,” Clarke complimented back, her cheeks warm from a blush.

“This old thing?” he asked with a quick grin which made her laugh.

“Clever, aren’t you?”

“I’d hope so, after all these years. Are you ready to go downstairs?”

“Just one thing first,” she walked over to her dresser and held out a manila envelope. “For you.”

He looked briefly sheepish which was, honestly, adorable. “I didn’t get you anything.”

“Just open it.”

Her breath was caught in her lungs and she hoped she’d done the right thing by giving him this, prayed it would give him peace and nothing else.

“I don’t- Is this the deed to the inn?”

“You’re not alive so I can’t sell it to you,” she explained, turning the page. “But I can sell it to your great-great niece.”

He reached out and grabbed her, holding her tight enough it almost hurt. “Clarke.”

“I thought it would be a good thing. Is it?”

In the most genuinely romantic gesture Clarke had ever experience for herself, he brought her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it.

Fuck it, she thought, she didn’t need to wait for him to make a move.

She dropped his hand and framed his face, ruining her lipstick as she pressed her lips against his.

It took only a moment for him to get with the program. The papers were sacrificed to the floor as he carelessly dropped them to put his hands on her waist.

“Clarke,” he murmured against her lips and she slid her arms around his neck to pull him closer. She didn’t understand how she could want him this desperately and not even know him for two weeks but there was nothing she needed or wanted more than Bellamy in that moment.

“I’m going to get lipstick on your collar,” she whispered between ragged breaths.

“I can promise you, I don’t care.”

She laughed, rested her head against the bedpost though she couldn’t remember moving. “So much for being the good guy.”

He looked at her quizzically. “Is that what you want?”

Clarke ran her hand down his chest, over the dark gray vest which was different than the only other one she’d seen him in. She briefly wondered if he’d gone out and found something special for this night too.

Or rather, had Nate find something for him.

“I want you,” Clarke answered honestly. “Whatever that looks like.”

“I want you,” he replied in kind, his voice quiet but not in any way soft. “Whatever that looks like.”

“Oh shit, that sounded a lot dirtier when you said it.”

“It was intended to.”

She toyed with a button, fully aware of what he would look like beneath the ironed linen. “As much fun as it would be to unwrap you right now, there is a house full of guests downstairs.”

His finger followed the line of her neck, down to the wide straps of her dress. “We might not get another chance, princess.”

She smiled at the nickname. “Maybe not this year,” she conceded. “But we’ll have next year, Bellamy. And plenty of years after that.”

“I don’t want to ask that of you. I can’t.”

“You’re not asking,” she reminded him. “I’m offering. It’s kind of a first for me.”

“I’m not certain I deserve you.”

“It doesn’t work that way, Bellamy. It’s not about deserving, it’s about accepting what’s in front of you.”

“If you’ll come back, I’ll never turn you away.”

“That’s all I needed to hear.” She reached down to take his hand and smiled at the now familiar zing up her arm. “You feel that, right?”

“I have since the beginning.”

“Me too. Come on, you owe me dance.”

“Whatever you say.”

 

 

When they reached the ballroom they found Miller skulking in a corner. “He should ask Monty to dance.”

Clarke agreed. “Do you think you can convince him?”

“No, but I imagine you could.”

She kissed him, seemingly because she could which pleased him beyond words. “I’ll get us drinks, you work on your friend.”

“Friend,” Bellamy repeated as if he’d never heard the word before.

“You’ll get used to it, I promise.”

“If you say so,” he grumbled as he walked across the room. “The place looks amazing.”

“Monty did a good job.”

“Question, are you going to continue to stand in the corner of the room while the man who have an interest in is courted by someone else?”

“Harper is not hitting on Monty.”

“If you say,” Bellamy shrugged. “Either way you’d think you’d want to be spending time with Monty when he’s in the same as room as yourself.”

“I could say the same thing about Clarke.”

“You could except for the fact we came down together and she’s getting us drinks.”

“Fuck.”

“You have no more excuses left, and trust me when I say you shouldn’t give up any opportunity for happiness. They come along and disappear without warning, you have to hold onto them for as long as you can, as tightly as you can.”

“I think I preferred misanthropic Bellamy.”

Bellamy laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Clarke came over with drinks and Miller immediately grabbed one, downed it in a single gulp and walked across the room.

“I guess we’re sharing,” Clarke commented with a smile.

“Your lipstick is smudged.”

“Shit,” she grabbed the napkin she’d been given with the drink and wiped at the edges of her lips. “Better?”

He nodded. “Is it odd I prefer the smudged look?”

“No, not even a little bit. You owe a dance, Mr. Blake.”

“Very well, Miss Griffin.” Bellamy took the cup from her hand and took a drink from it before leading her to the small dance floor. “It has been awhile since I’ve done this so I’ll hope you’ll forgive me any missteps.”

“Let’s just sway.”

“Sway?”

“Like this,” Clarke stepped forward and linked her fingers at the nape of her neck. “Now your hands on my waist.”

“Waist or hips?” he clarified.

She stepped closer to him so their bodies were nearly pressed fully against each other which briefly emptied his brain of all thought. “Whichever.”

He decided on hips. “This reminds me of what we were doing earlier.”

Her grin could only be described as female victory. “Kind of the point.”

“I could maybe get used to these more modern times.”

Clarke laughed and it was such a bright, wonderful sound he wondered if he could hang onto it for 353 days.

“Bellamy.”

“Huh?”

Clarke blinked at him, her heels making them the same height. “I didn’t say anything.”

He looked around the room, trying to figure out where the sound had come from and only too a second for him to find it. “Do you see her?”

Looking over her shoulder at the same place Bellamy was looking she shook her head. “See who? Who’s there?”

“Gina.”

Clarke dropped one hand from his neck, the other falling to his shoulder as she looked around frantically. “What? She’s the other ghost?”

“She did die here if you recall. She’s leaving, will you come with me?”

“Yeah, of course.”

They left the room together and he followed Gina out the front door to the porch where he’d seen her all those decades ago.

“I see her,” Clarke whispered, her shoulder pressed against him. “She’s wearing green.”

“Her favorite color,” he murmured as if it had any kind of importance in the moment.

“Who is she talking to?” Clarke asked and it was only then Bellamy realized there was a fourth person on the porch, someone who should not be there.

Gina was talking to him in a hushed, hard voice. “You have to stop this. There is no point to this, nothing you can will change what is happening. It is time for you let go and leave him be.”

Either he or Clarke must have made some kind of noise because the man looked up and over Gina’s shoulder to them. His grin hard and vicious. “Welcome to the party, Bellamy. A few decades lates, but what can you do?”

“Dax?” Bellamy asked, dumbfounded and more confused than he’d ever been.

“The guy ran rum with?” Clarke asked.

“What are doing here?”

Dax sneered, “Not going to hell, that’s what.”

“Oh my god, Bellamy. It’s him. He’s the one who killed you.”

Bellamy shook his head, ready to correct Clarke because they had friends.

“He’s also the one keeping you here,” Gina added, her voice calm despite the rising levels of tension.

“Dax?” Bellamy asked, not ready to believe someone he would have died would have done something so horrible. “What is she saying? It can’t be true.”

“Believe it,” Dax snarled and this was never a side of him Bellamy had seen. There was something heartless-no, there was something _soulless_ about him. “I killed you, and if I’ve got any say in it you’re going to be haunting this damn place for an eternity.”

“You’re the one scaring away the appraisers, not Bellamy,” Clarke realized, stepping forward. “You’re the one who has been trying to scare me away.”

“Anyone else would have gone running for the half the effort I put into you.”

“Unstoppable force,” Clarke gestured at him, then herself. “Immovable object.”

Gina adjusted the fur jacket hanging around her shoulders and it broke Bellamy’s heart to see how alive she looked. Healthy and whole with a beating heart. She deserved so much better than life had given her.

“When I died I knew you were here, I’d always felt you in the attic. But we rarely ever connected and when we did-”

“The memories,” Bellamy realized, then looked down at Clarke. “Sometimes I’d have these memories, vivid like I was reliving them, and I couldn’t ever explain them.”

“I don’t know why, but when we found our way to each other we’d fall into those memories. All these decades I’ve been trying to get you see understand what was going on.”

“And what is going on?” Clarke demanded.

“Dax is keeping you tied to this place, Bellamy. And I’ve been trying to convince him to let you go.”

“The voices. You’re the voices I heard in the ballroom.”

“Yes, I wasn’t able to reach out to either. It was incredibly frustrating, I’m sorry for any fear I might have caused.

“I’m not,” Dax added as if it mattered at all.

“Why would you do it?” Bellamy finally asked. “Why would you kill me? I didn’t do a thing to harm you.”

“Pike,” Dax shrugged. “He refused to believe you were leaving, didn’t want to believe you’d betray him, but what could he do when you walked out of Montreal? It was an order, Bellamy, kill you so you wouldn’t talk.”

“I wouldn’t have.”

Again the shrug. “We couldn’t be sure of that, and when it came down to it, it was either you or me. When I died I didn’t want to know what was coming for me, I didn’t exactly live a clean life even if I hadn’t murdered you, so I kept you here because you’re my anchor. If you go, I go, and I don’t want to go.”

Bellamy reached back for Clarke, his own anchor. “Is that what’s keeping you here? Fear of judgement? Then I free from it, I forgive you.”

Dax scoffed. “Right.”

“I’m serious,” and Bellamy realized with some surprised it was true. “I’ve spent almost a hundred years angry and it did me no good. So I forgive you, and what’s more, I thank you.”

The shock of Dax’s face would be hilarious in any other circumstance. “What the hell do you have to thank me for? I killed you.”

“I’m not saying it was right or it was good, but you were faced with an impossible choice and you made a decision. And it’s a decision which led me here, to this moment, and this woman and for that I owe my deepest gratitude.”

Dax looked confused, but from one moment to the next he was gone in a whisp of light and snow.

In the same moment a heavy stone in Bellamy’s gut he had grown so used to he’d forgotten about it lifted away. “Was that it?” Clarke asked in a whisper. “Is he gone?”

Bellamy stared at the place Dax had once stood. “I suppose so.” He looked back to the place Gina had stood a moment ago to see she was gone as well.

“She stayed all these years, when she didn’t have to.”

“It’s what you do when you love someone.”

“I told you, Clarke, it wasn’t ever like that between us.”

“There’s more than one kind of love Bellamy,” she corrected patiently. “You’d have stayed for Octavia, wouldn’t you? For Nate?”

“Yes, of course I would.”

“Then don’t think less of Gina. Of course she stayed for you, who wouldn’t?” She glanced at the other end of the porch. “Seems too easy, and you’re still here.”

She sounded so confused Bellamy turned to look at her, her free hand running up and down her arm in a vain attempt to keep warm. Bellamy let go of her hand so he could take off his jacket and drape it over her shoulders. He should have thought of the chill earlier.

“I thought once we solved the mystery it would let you move.”

He had thought so as well. “It was as good a theory as any.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” he assured her.

“No,” she stepped forward and put her hands on his arms. “I’m sorry that I’m not sorry it didn’t work. Honestly, it would’ve broken my heart to see you go. I’ve waited a really long time for this, and as selfish as it is, I don’t want you to move on.”

Bellamy’s heart was beating, he could swear he could feel it slamming against his ribs with hope and anticipation and as much as he wanted take her in his arms and finish what they’d started in her room he needed to make sure she understood what she’d be getting herself into.

“I only have twelve days to offer.”

“It’s better than none,” she argued. “And I’ve had plenty of none.”

“Clarke, I don’t think-“

“Bellamy, what if this is our fate? Sure, it’s not conventional, but neither are we. Rum runner who doesn’t want to run alcohol and a lawyer who isn’t sure she wants to practice law.” She pressed her fingers into the muscle of his arm. “You can’t ask me to pretend like I don’t feel this, and you can’t convince me you don’t.”

“I feel this Clarke. In my entire memory I have never felt anything quite as much as I’ve felt this.” He heard the chimes of the clock inside the hotel begin. “It’s almost midnight.”

She gripped onto the fabric of his vest as if she could hold him to the plane and to her.

If only, if only.

“I’ll wait for you, Bellamy. And I’ll be here, same time next year, and the year and the year after that.”

Bellamy leaned forward as the clock stuck again, and this time there was no overwhelming passion or hesitancy. There was love in every touch as the clock counted down seconds and then moments and whatever magic held him to this earth faded and disappeared from her touch.

He could almost swear he heard her say ‘I love you’ before he left.


	8. Chapter 8

#  **Chapter**

Bellamy had expected to go back to the dark from whence he came but instead he was standing in the snow, under the white columns and beams of the back gardens.

Gina was there in her silk and furs. “Hello, Bellamy.”

“What does this mean?” he asked with a glance to the property line which had always sent him back to the inn in less than a heartbeat.

“Dax is gone. You’re free of this place.”

She held out her hand but he didn’t take it so she stepped forward to wrap her velvet gloved hands around his. Gina faced the woods and Bellamy automatically did the same.

When she stepped forward he gripped her hand tighter and pulled her back to him. “Gina, wait.”

He knew this was what he was supposed to do, but he couldn’t help looking back at the inn. But it wasn’t he building which mattered to him, it was the woman it housed safely within its walls.

“My friend, the choice is yours to make.”

She smiled at him and turned towards the wood and disappeared into the dark, winter night, but Bellamy did not follow. Instead, he stood still as the snow began to fall around him wondering which he should follow: his head or his heart.

Clarke woke up the next morning sad, lonely, and a little lost at what to do next.

Walking up to her she decided she’d pack and figure out what she was going to do with the next year of her life. Almost as if on cue her phone rang from the side table, “Hi Marcus.”

“Truce?”

She sat on the window sill, catching sight of Monty and Nate kissing in the snow and ignoring the ache in her heart was the only way she was going to get through the eleven months. “We don’t need a truce, Marcus, we’re not fighting.”

“Then why do I feel like I should apologize? I’m sorry I asked you to come on Christmas Eve, it was rude of me to presume that your mother and your job were the only things your life. You’ve been nothing but amazing since I hired you so if you need to take the rest of the year off, I’ll understand. Whatever you decide, the Senior Associate position will be here when you get back.”

“Thank you Marcus, that means a lot to me, but I’m not sure if I want to come.”

“I kind of suspected. Take the three weeks, I’m we owe you vacation days or sick leave, and when the new year comes around give me a call and we’ll figure something out.”

“I appreciate it Marcus, Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas to you too.”

Clarke brought her suitcase down the stairs, smiled sadly when she Nate at the bottom of the stairs.

“You’re leaving?”

She wouldn’t cry she told herself, not until she was home and she could do it with wine and privacy. “Yeah, I kind of need to.”

“I only ever wanted Bellamy to be free.”

“Who knows,” Clarke shrugged, nearly losing her battle against the tears. “Maybe he is.”

“Don’t be a stranger, you don’t just have to come in December, It’s pretty nice around here in the spring too.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she promised as she reached out to hug her friend. “Be happy.”

“You too.”

Monty appeared from a back room. “Nate, the clean up crew is here, they need to talk to you.”

Nate nodded. “I’ll see you, Clarke.”

“Bye Nate.”

She waited until he’d disappeared around a corner before she stood in front of the famed article and the picture of Bellamy. It was stupid and sentimental, but she touched a finger to the glass.

“Bye, Bellamy.”

And the front door swung open, letting the bright winter morning sunlight stream through.

She didn’t think anything of it, Nate probably hadn’t latched properly when he came in, too busy kissing his new boyfriend to do it right. Clarke grabbed the handle and was prepared to shut when she saw the faintest movement in the distance, in the woods beyond the property line.

A man, walking towards the inn.

“No,” she whispered out loud but her feet moved forward. “No,” she repeated again as the male figure became familiar.

Clarke broke into a run across the snow, thinking how much easier this would all be in the summer, but she didn’t let the snow drifts slow her down, not when Bellamy had spotted her and was running towards her.

She sobbed as his arms came around her, buried her face in his wool jacket and she repeated, “You came back” over and over again.

“Clarke,” he murmured, finally drawing her face back so he could see her.

“How?” she asked, the tears she’d sworn to spill in private fell down her cheeks. “How is this possible?”

He brushed hair away from her face, his eyes roving over every feature as if trying to remember them all. “Twelve days wasn’t enough. I want more. I want you.”

They kissed, a mutual falling into each other’s arms with the promise and happiness which made it memorable and hard because the smiles made it difficult to do properly.

Bellamy rested his forehead on hers.

“I love you.”

“I love you too,” Clarke whispered and this time when she kissed him, she did it properly. “Merry Christmas, Bellamy.”

“Here’s to many, many more.”

 

_ Two Years Later... _

“I can’t believe you’re a great-great-great uncle,” Clarke grinned as she put on her jacket.

Bellamy picked up their bags, enjoying Clarke’s excitement as much as anything else. “Have you been doing the actual counting of how many greats I am, or have been guessing this entire time?”

“Guessing,” she admitted without a trace of regret. “But it sounds right. Did Octavia say if they’ve picked a name yet?”

“Apparently she and Lincoln have been hotly debating choices since they found out she was pregnant. Now that the babe is born, it seems to be contested still.”

Living for a few weeks every year had given Bellamy a good idea of changing technologies so picking up things like texting had been easier for him than either he or Clarke expected. It was still odd to him, to be able to correspond with his family a hundred miles away with immediacy.

Odd, but wonderful.

“She said there’s no rush to get to the inn,” he reminded Clarke as she grabbed her purse before they left their apartment in the city. “But they’ll be sitting down for dinner at approximately seven.”

“I can’t believe she popped out a kid two days ago and is still having a family dinner.”

“Monty and Miller were happy to host the Christmas Eve dance, but I believe Octavia missed not being in charge. This gives her the opportunity.”

She pushed the button for the elevator, taking his hand in way which had become an absent gesture. It was nice to be able to take such things for granted. “Was your Octavia as… I’m trying to think of a polite word for aggressive.”

Bellamy laughed as they stepped in the elevator, letting go of each other’s hands only to reclaim them once they were turned around. “She wasn’t quite as spirited-”

“Spirited,” Clarke repeated. “That is a better way of saying it.”

“But they had similar senses of humor.”

“Namely, making fun of you.”

“Sisters,” Bellamy explained with a shrug. While the woman who had a face similar to the woman Bellamy had known so many decades ago, it had been easy to accept they weren’t the same person. He could love this new member of his family without comparing her to his sister.

And now she’d given birth to a little girl which was why he and Clarke were making the trip back to Hollygrove Inn where nearly everyone knew him as BJ.

Here, amidst the skyscrapers and lights, his friends and hers knew him as Bellamy and thanks to the magic which had given him life he had a social security card and a birth certificate to go along with the name.

Clarke had found it the day after that first Christmas. They’d spent most of Christmas in bed together, Miller leaving the hotel to them until it opened the next day. They’d wandered up to the attic at some point to go through the boxes to see if there was anything he wanted to keep and take back to the city with him and it was in those boxes Clarke had found all the things which would allow him to have a full life in the modern age.

In the two years since they had found their place together. While Hollygrove Inn had once been his home, there were too many memories of the years he’d passed in quiet. A ghost of a ghost. So when Clarke had offered to bring him to her fourth floor apartment it had seemed right.

A new place for his new life.

But there was no life Bellamy could see himself in where he did nothing and it had taken very little prodding from Clarke for him to sit down and write his own stories. Clarke then spirited them off to a friend of a friend and in just a few months his first book would be published.

In the meantime, Clarke had experienced her own growing pains. The law firm where she had worked at with her now step-father hadn’t been as fulfilling as she’d once hoped. After researching together Bellamy had been struck with an idea.

She had saved Hollygrove, hadn’t she? Why couldn’t she do that again with other places around the state? There were plenty of old buildings who needed someone to care enough to make sure they got into the right hands, why couldn’t that person be her?

Technically it made a real estate agent of sorts, but it allowed them both to travel and preserve odd bits of history throughout the area.

They were both, remarkably, happy.

When they got to Hollygrove Monty and Miller were both visiting with Octavia while Lincoln held his daughter as if she was the most precious thing which had ever been created. As Bellamy got close enough to see her for himself, he had to agree.

Clarke hugged Octavia and offered both mother and father her congratulations. “You guys have to have a name for her by now.”

“We’ve decided on Renee,” Octavia answered. “Middle name to be determined, but at least we don’t have to keep referring to her as the baby.”

The baby was passed around until she fell asleep and Lincoln took her up to the nursery for her nap. Octavia got up to cook dinner while Monty and Miller snuck off somewhere discreetly.

Taking the opportunity to be alone with Clarke, he led out to the back gardens. He sometimes missed the snow and stone, the flowers in the spring, but the life he had with Clarke more than made up for the little things he missed.

“Her niece is gorgeous,” Clarke commented as they sat down on the stone bench facing the columns.

Bellamy touched his pocket and thought now was as good a time as any. “We should have one of our own.” 

She stared at him and it was a rare pleasure, shocking Clarke speechless. “Do you not agree?”

She swallowed and looked away. “No, I do. I just thought you’d want to get married before you’d want to have kids.”

“Oh, I do.” He reached into his pocket and put a ring box on the bench between them. “So we should probably get married.” 

Clarke reached for the ring but hesitated, almost as if she was afraid of it.

“I never told you about the night I came back, did I?”

She pulled her eyes away from the box to look at him. “You said you were on the porch one moment and then the next you woke up in the woods on Christmas Day.”

“Which is technically true, but not the entire story.” He looked at the archway, wondered how Clarke would feel about getting married under them, or if she’d want to do it on the rooftop of a building back home. “I was on the porch with you and then I was here, with Gina.”

He picked up the box and opened it, enjoying the quiet gasp from Clarke as she saw the diamond inside with its very modern setting. “She was going to take me to the otherside. Just a few steps and I would have been...well, to whatever comes next I suppose.”

“But you didn’t.”

“She went ahead, but not before informing it was my choice to go ahead or not. I could stay, was the implication, if I wanted.”

“How did you know you’d come back alive?”

He felt the edges up his lips quirk up, “I didn’t.”

“What?”

He picked up her left hand but didn’t put the ring on her finger. She hadn’t said yes, after all. “I just knew I’d get more time with you, whatever form that took. If it was twelves days for sixty years, I would have been happy with all of them. The universe seemed to decide otherwise.”

She gripped his hand, staring into the soul he was certain he had, his heart beating quickly in his chest. Such a strange sensation he wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to again. “I would have been happy with that, but I’m glad we got more.”

“Me too. And while in my time we’d have done the engagement before we moved in together-”

“Before a lot of things,” she reminded him with a wicked grin.

“True enough,” he conceded, having enjoyed every moment they’d spent intimately together over the years. “But I’m old fashioned enough to want to marry you, to exchange rings, and promise all the things people who love each other promise. I love you, Clarke, and I’m whole because of you in more ways than one. I want the world to know I’m lucky enough to be chosen by you.”

She kissed him, and while it wasn’t an answer, he enjoyed the soft promise it held just the same. “I love you, Bellamy. And I will marry you, and not just because I’m pregnant, but because I want the world to know how you’ll always be the best thing I’ve ever had.”

He grinned and started sliding the ring onto her finger, stopping at the first knuckle.

When he looked at her she was smiling broadly, a laugh barely held behind her lips. “I beg your pardon, but could you possibly repeat that bit in the middle?”

Clarke ran her other hand through his hair, a glow he should have seen before radiating from her. “I’m pregnant, Bellamy. About two months along. We’re going to have a baby.”

He thought back to two months ago, but could think of no moment which might have indicated they’d conceived. 

A baby.

“Are you okay?” she asked because the ring was still half on her finger and he was staring off to some middle distance.

“I didn’t think I’d have any of this,” he admitted, pushing the ring to the base of her finger. He stared at the image, amazed it was possible. “I thought I’d lost the chance to have a wife and a family when I died.”

“Not without reason,” she reminded him gently.

“But I get to have it all,” and Bellamy couldn’t help but sound amazed. “I didn’t think I could love as completely as I love you, didn’t think I would get the chance to be loved with equal veracity but here we are. I don’t know what I did to deserve this second chance.”

“Don’t question it,” Clarke ordered softly, taking his hand to lay it over her still flat stomach. “Just be glad it happened.”

“You’re due in August?” he asked, because knowing suddenly seemed very important to him.

“It’ll be a miserable summer, I’m warning you, but yeah, around the beginning of August. So we can either get married soon, before I start showing, or after I’ve had the baby.”

“Soon,” he decided on a whim. “After all, you never know what might happen.”

Clarke leaned forward and kissed him, the kind of kiss which likely led to the existence of their child in the first place. “Oh, I know what will happen next.”

“You do?”

“This whole thing has been a fairy tale, Bellamy. It means we get happily ever after.”

Bellamy pulled her forward to kiss her properly, they’d announce their engagement and the baby later, but for know it was only them on the planet.

And happily ever after was something he thought he might finally believe in.


End file.
